Because of the accessibility and large area of the skin, it has long been considered a promising route for the administration of drugs, whether dermal, regional, or systemic effects are desired.
The advantages of the topical route of drug administration include: avoidance of the risks and inconvenience of parenteral treatment; avoidance of the variable absorption and metabolism associated with oral treatment; continuity of drug administration, permitting use of pharmacologically active agents with short biological half-lives; potential reduction of gastrointestinal irritation in systemic administration; and treatment of cutaneous manifestations of diseases usually treated systemically.
However, the impermeability of skin is well-known, serving as a barrier to ingress of pathogens and toxic chemicals, and egress of physiologic fluids. This impermeability is the result of normal physiologic changes in developing skin. A typical cell in the epidermis is formed in the basal layer. It typically takes approximately thirty days for a cell to migrate from the basal layer of the epidermis to sloughing off and discarding at the outer layers of the stratum corneum. As the cell migrates outward from the basal layer, it progressively keratinizes until it is relatively impermeable. The result is the stratum corneum, an extremely thin surface layer (10 microns) with substantial barrier properties. The cell envelopes of the cells in the stratum corneum tend to be mainly polar lipids, such as ceramides, sterols, and fatty acids while the cytoplasm of stratum corneum cells remains polar and aqueous. Despite the close packing of the cells, some 15% of the stratum corneum is intercellular and, generally, lipid based. It is generally recognized that over the very short term, penetration occurs through the hair follicles and the sebaceous apparatus; long-term penetration occurs across cells (non-polar route). Poor penetration of many drugs across the epidermal lipid barrier has, until now, frustrated attempts to deliver clinically significant doses of many drugs by the topical route.
One route of delivery of drugs is by transdermal administration. Transdermal administration of drugs can be used in many instances to achieve therapeutic levels of the drugs in the systemic circulatory system, as well as for more localized internal dosing of drugs. Where such therapeutic levels of drugs can be achieved by transdermal administration, several potential advantages exist over other routes of administration. Sustained systemic delivery of drug controlled at therapeutic but below toxic levels over long periods of time with a single continuous application is often an advantage of transdermal drug administration. Potential contamination of internal tissues with undesired foreign substances or microbes, often associated with parenteral administration of drugs, is avoided with transdermal drug administration. Oral administration of many drugs is undesirable or unfeasible because the drug decomposes in the harsh environment of the gastrointestinal tract, lacks sufficient absorption from the gastrointestinal tract, or causes gastrointestinal upset or tissue damage in the gastrointestinal tract. First-pass metabolism of orally administered drugs can increase the dosage required to achieve therapeutic levels and thereby increase undesirable side effects either from the primary drug or the metabolites. Maintenance of uniform, optimal systemic levels of drugs for long periods of time is often difficult through oral administration. Such problems can often be reduced or avoided by transdermal drug administration.
Despite the substantial potential advantages for transdermal administration of drugs, relatively few drugs are so administered. The skin is a formidable barrier to the passage of most drugs. It is often necessary to provide a composition containing a skin penetration enhancing vehicle in order to provide sufficient transdermal penetration of the drug to achieve therapeutic levels of the drug at the target internal tissue. A number of skin penetration enhancing vehicles for drugs have been disclosed, including those in the following references: U.S. Pat. No. 3,536,816 issued to Kellner on Oct. 27, 1970; U.S. Pat. No. 4,006,218 issued to Sipos on Feb. 1, 1977; U.S. Pat. No. 4,124,720 issued to Wenmaekers on Nov. 7, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,681 issued to Reller on Nov. 21, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,826 issued to Luedders on Nov. 10, 1981; U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,936 issued to Klein on Dec. 15, 1981; U.S. Pat. No. 4,309,414 issued to Inagi, Muramatsu & Nagai on Jan. 5, 1982; U.S. Pat. No. 4,338,306 issued to Kitao & Nishimura on Jul. 6, 1982; U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,090 issued to Kakeya, Kitao & Nishimura on Apr. 10, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,033 issued to Kitao & Nishimura on Nov. 27, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,776 issued to Cooper on Aug. 27, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,552,872 issued to Cooper, Loomans & Fawzi on Nov. 12, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,557,934 issued to Cooper on Dec. 10, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,995 issued to Chen, Chun & Enscore on Mar. 4, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,539 issued to Aungst & DiLuocio on Dec. 2, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,930 issued to Konno, Kawata, Aruga, Sonobe & Mitomi issued Jan. 20, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,465 issued to Kigasawa, Ohtani, Tanaka & Hayashida on Sep. 22, 1987; European Patent Application No. 0,043,738 of The Procter & Gamble Company in the names of Wickett, Cooper & Loomans, published on Jun. 13 1982; European Patent Application No. 0,095,813 of The Procter & Gamble Company in the name of Cooper, published Dec. 7, 1983; PCT International Patent Application No. WO 87/03490 of Key Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in the names of Bodor and Loftson, published on Jun. 18, 1987; Washitake, M., T. Anmo, I. Tanaka, T. Arita & M. Nakano, "Percutaneous Absorption of Drugs from Oily Vehicles", Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vol. 64, No. 3 (March, 1975), pp. 397-401; Shahi, V., & J. L. Zatz, "Effect of Formulation Factors on Penetration of Hydrocortisone through Mouse Skin", Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vol. 67, No. 6 (June, 1978), pp. 789-792; Cooper, E. R., "Increased Skin Permeability for Lipophilic Molecules", Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vol. 73, No. 8 (August, 1984), pp. 1153-1156; Aungst, B. J., N. J. Rogers & E. Shefter, "Enhancement of Naloxone Penetration through Human Skin In Vitro Using Fatty Acids, Fatty Alcohols, Surfactants, Sulfoxides and Amides", International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Vol. 33 (1986), pp. 225-234; Green, P. G., & J. Hadgraft, "Facilitated Transfer of Cationic Drugs Across a Lipoidal Membrane by Oleic Acid and Lauric Acid", International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Vol. 37 (July, 1987), pp. 251-255.
Often, though, transdermal delivery of drugs can cause skin irritation (e.g., burning and stinging), drying of skin and further can be difficult to formulate. The present invention provides stable compositions for the transdermal delivery of drugs which do not require ethanol to solubilize the active and therefore can be substantially free of ethanol, are easy to formulate and which further provide low dermal irritation. These compositions also provide improved moisturizing benefits.
It is an object of the present invention to provide novel compositions for enhancing the skin penetration of drugs with significantly reduced skin irritation.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such compositions which provide sufficient skin penetration enhancement to achieve therapeutic levels of the drugs in target internal tissues.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such compositions with low dermal irritation, especially in compositions requiring a low pH.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such compositions having good stability and good cosmetics and which do not require ethanol to solubilize the drug actives.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide compositions useful for the treatment of acne.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide compositions useful for the treatment of skin wrinkles and skin atrophy and other affects of skin aging such as actinic elastosis.